With many players writing off Battlefield 2042 completely, plenty of gamers already have their sights set on Battlefield 6 and what that might be.
While DICE and EA are sticking firmly to their guns with keeping Battlefield 2042 alive, it certainly feels like the project may be a lost cause at this point. Especially when you consider how much content was actually included in the latest Season 1 update.
That got me thinking – the last few Battlefield games have been lacklustre at best. What would it actually take for a brand new Battlefield game to be good? Here are ten things that a new Battlefield 6 game should do to impress fans.
Polished Performance
First things first, it needs to be able to actually run on player consoles and PCs. Battlefield has always been about delivering a stupendous graphical experience alongside its gameplay. However, if that comes at a drastic cost of frames per second, is it really worth it?
To make matters worse, Battlefield 2042 doesn’t actually look all that impressive anyway. Many of its maps are open and flat, making them super boring to look at. Compare how Star Wars Battlefront 2 looks to Battlefield 2042 and the difference is night and day. Plus, it runs far better. I’ll take stylisation over faux realism and a low frame rate any day.
Classic Loadouts
You saw this one coming a mile away. DICE is adamant that the Specialists in Battlefield 2042 are a staple of the gameplay loop, but I can’t say they do much for most of the player base. With characters able to equip any weapon with any gadget, it has completely removed any sort of player role from the series, going against the teamplay structure that used to be at the core of the squad-based gameplay.
For that reason, Battlefield 6 should return to its roots and re-embrace the role based gameplay that it’s known for. Afterall, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, right? Forcing players to adopt either a support, medic, assault, or recon role gives players a much more interesting dynamic in the team. It encourages them to think more carefully about how they want to approach combat situations and makes for a more varied Battlefield overall.
Taking this a step further, DICE could adopt a similar approach to Overwatch 2 and start to enforce squad roles. However, this might be something that’s more suited to a hardcore of competitive playlist. Food for thought, though.
No Gimmicks (tornados)
You could view the Specialists in Battlefield 2042 as a bit of a gimmick (I know I certainly do). However, the bigger gimmicks in the newest title are the worst offenders. I’m yet to be convinced that those massive tornadoes that roll on in are somehow beneficial to gameplay. To me, they’re simply an RNG inconvenience that tanks my frame rate lower than it already is.
DICE seems to be hellbent on including gimmicks like these in modern Battlefield games. The introduction of ‘Levolution’ in Battlefield 4 was the only successful one in recent years, which the studio might be trying to replicate. The thing is, Levolution was an evolution of the destruction mechanics that were already a staple of the Battlefield series. Adding in mechanics like attrition or absurd natural disasters just ain’t it, chief. Give us a fun and reliable gameplay experience before you start throwing unpredictable weather effects into the mix, please.
Lower playercounts
Even DICE seems to agree with me on this one. On paper, having 128-players in a single match seems like a great idea. War on a humongous scale, larger than even some battle royale games, right? It turns out, not in practice.
DICE has recently reduced the maximum player count in the Breakthrough mode from 128 players to the classic 64. Having a player count this high introduces several problems to overcome from a development standpoint. Maps have to be larger to accommodate more players, which results in less time to add intricate details that give maps personality. The result is a smaller collection of huge maps that are boring to look at and even more dull to traverse.
In addition, having a much higher player count requires more resources from a server and local machine perspective. That’s part of why Battlefield 2042’s performance is so damn awful in the larger modes. Making Battlefield 6 more focused is almost certainly the way to go.